


Into the eternal darkness, into fire and into ice

by talverrar



Series: 30-love [3]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Study, F/M, Fix-It, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of Angst, Post-Canon, Trauma, happy end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-04-21 09:19:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4823564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talverrar/pseuds/talverrar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She hates not being able to see his face. It’s just his long, thin fingers trying to escape her own, and his gruff, apathetic voice. White noise is filling up her head again, it resonates within her like a bell of bronze, and she can sense the incoming migraine."<br/>Sam returns to the mines in search of Josh and her own brand of hell. Inspired by (but NOT based on) "The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Within a forest dark

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr: [here]() or [here :)]()

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Midway upon the journey of our life  
> I found myself within a forest dark,  
> For the straightforward pathway had been lost"
> 
> \---Dante Alighieri, _Inferno_

1.

She wakes up in the hospital in the middle of the night. Not in one of the beds, though, but on a couch in the waiting room. The doctors wanted her to put her under observation, but she’s an adult, and she doesn’t understand how Canadian healthcare works, and she’s fine, anyway. Just in shock.

Her knee is bandaged but it doesn’t hurt. She feels nothing at all.

The realization of yesterday’s (?) events start flooding through her like a series of cold ocean tides. Her vision turns hazy, and it takes her a moment to realize that tears are starting to swell up in her eyes, only to stream down her cheeks, marking her face like shooting stars. She doesn’t know why this is happening. She is not sad. You can’t feel sad with your insides turned to brass.

She’s alone.

 

2.

The painkillers start wearing off a while later, between a Mars bar from the vending machine and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich brought by Chris’s mother. She looks distressed. Her Texan accent makes Sam think of a video tape Beth had showed her once in another life: Josh in a dinosaur costume, Chris dressed as Ian Goldblum from _Jurassic Park_. They were both so very little, maybe ten years old, bursting with enthusiasm as they roleplayed their favourite characters. Chris’s accent was so thick back then that it’d made her laugh. She’d laughed so hard she fell off her chair and scratched her knee and cried out, and Josh came to check if everything was ok and got so mad he didn’t talk to her for a week. 

Her own parents are still trying to get enough money for a ticket plane, and for the first time in her life she’s grateful for the recession. This would’ve been so much harder with them as her anchor.

 

3.

She spends god knows how many hours in complete darkness, staring at the glass holding the darkness at bay, waiting for the break of dawn. There are no night buses to where she has to go, she had checked. But again, that was in another lifetime.

She gets up every time she loses count of her heartbeats (her phone is gone for good and looking at the clock makes her anxious) and stretches. She appreciates that her muscles ache. There will be time for numbness later.

Or there won’t.

She doesn’t care all that much.

 

4.

She glances at the clock one last time. She needs to leave now. There’s no time to lose. No time. No time until dawn.

She grabs the winter jacket Chris’s mother had bought her earlier, collects a few water bottles and steals every sandwich she can from the woman’s bag without waking her.

It’s been more than 24 hours. He must be starving. She’s trying to be optimistic. Trying not to think about the body of the old guy.

She goes to Jessica’s room, and she doesn’t really know why. All she knows is that the blonde had been through a lot that night, and her psychological damage matches the scars she’s going to have to live with for the rest of her life. She used to be sparks and stars, burning and shimmering, bright and careless, and she got turned into something soft, like a teddy bear with its belly torn apart, plastic eyes looking, but not seeing.

But she’s alive. She has a chance to go on.

Jessica and Josh start on the same letter, but their ends are drastically different.

 

5.

Jessica is awake, but Matt is not. He’s curled on one of the two armchairs in the room, all patched up, twitching slightly as he dreams of falling, falling, endlessly falling down.

Her eyes seem to glow in the dark, piercing right through and beyond Sam.

When she speaks, she whispers, voice raspy and breathy.

“You’re going to find him.”

Sam doesn’t know whether it’s a question, a statement, or a prophecy, but she nods. She is.

She opens her mouth, thoughts of deathly pale skin with a butterfly tattoo growing in her brain like tumors, but Jess closes her eyes, and Sam turns away. No time to lose, no time.

 

6.

Right outside Jessica’s room she bumps into Emily, who is carrying a jug of water. The girl- no, none of them are girls or boys anymore. The _woman_ opens her mouth to snap at her, but one look into Sam’s eyes is enough to shut her up.

“Did you wake her up?” Emily whispers, and it’s so unlike her that Sam almost laughs.

“No. She was already awake. I wanted to ask her something.”

“And did you?”

“No. She doesn’t remember. And if she does, I don’t want her to.”

The brunette only nods in response. Nods! Their sour-sweet Emily, a person who would rather talk about directions for minutes than just use gestures; who would never miss an opportunity to share her opinion and never, ever apologized for it; who was the brightest of them all and never failed to remind them that, was now crumbled and quiet and gentle, bringing water to her ex’s girlfriend, even after everything they’ve done to each other.

Josh would have asked her whether she was going to wash Jessica’s feet with it.

Sam blocks the thought with all her might before it could do more damage to her psyche.

“You’re going. To find him?”

A question. The answer doesn’t matter.

“I’m just… going,” she says eventually.

“You’re an idiot, Sam,” she says, a bit louder. Old habits die hard.

Emily reaches into the pocket of her pajamas and takes out her phone.

“Take it. Fully charged, but you know how it is with smartphones.”

Sam nods in thanks, speechless. Nobody was ever allowed to even look at the screen of her next gen Samsung.

“There are some nudes on it, but you should save the battery anyway, so don’t even think about it.”

Sam really wants to crack a smile, but she’s full of cracks already and afraid of breaking, and Em knows exactly how much easier it is to act like a stone and become it, than try to remain as not-shattered porcelain.

“And… Sam?”

She stops halfway out of the corridor.

“Thank you. For telling Mike not to shoot me. Even if you didn’t… know for sure.”

The brunette sends her a tiny, fragile smile, turns around and leaves.

 

7.

She gets to the end of the corridor leading to the main hall and pauses. There’s no way they’re going to just let her leave. She’s one of the crazy kids, instantly recognizable. They’re definitely not allowed to let her go until they realize that what they’ve been saying was true; That the last Washington kid is either dead or undead somewhere deep underground. That it was all his fault, and not his fault at all.

There’s no time, she reminds herself. There’s no time for stopping. If she doesn’t start moving, she might start thinking. And if she starts thinking, she might start wondering who Josh was talking to when he-

She shudders.

It’s only because of the cold.

She takes one decisive step - or rather attempts to, because somebody grabs her by the arm, turns her, and pulls her close. A hand starts stroking her hair.

Every fiber in her body wants to push Mike away; she doesn’t want to be touched like this, such gestures indicate that she’s delicate, precious, loved, and she cannot be any of those things right now.

_I trust you._

She’s got no time.

“You’re shivering, Sam.”

“Look, Mike, I appreciate your concern, but-”

“I cannot let you go down there. Not alone. Not again, Sam.”

“I have to,” she whispers, and she knows it to be true.

“You don’t. If you wait just a little bit more, if you let the rescue team work-”

“They have no idea how to even get to him. But I remember. I remember everything. I can do this on my own,” she says a bit louder, and finds herself believing that, too.

“I can’t let you die for what could already be a corpse!”

“I am going to die for whatever I feel like! And you had told me he was still alive the last time you saw him.”

“The last time I saw him he was bonkers! You have no idea what he could do while he was… alone. Down there. Tell me you thought about this... possibility.”

Hearing somebody else mention it fills her head with white noise. She needs to move, to run, before she lets herself be convinced, _lulled_ by the thought that leaving him alone is better than trying.

“He’s alive in there,” she growls. “He’s alive, and alone, and _hungry_ , and if I don’t go _now_ I’m going to spend the rest of my life _hating myself_. And that’s way worse than dying, Mike.”

“Not in my book,” he insists. “You’re one of the few friends’ I got left, I won’t let you go kill myself for nothing. Or get trapped in one of those mines and end up like Hannah, I just can’t let you.”

“Mike...” a small, soft voice manages to startle them, echoing somewhere from behind. “Let her go.”

Ashley is standing in the hallway, a tiny, sad pixie with a black-eye and in hospital gown. She is carrying a scarf.

“You would do the exact same thing for Jess. Already did. So let her.”

“That was before-”

“You wouldn’t hesitate even if you’d known about the wendigos,” the blonde argues. “You’d still go. Let me.”

He stares at her for a while, and just when Sam is about to forcefully push him away, he steps back.

“If you… if something happens to you,” his voice breaks. “If you don’t come back with all your fingers intact, I’m going to kick Josh’s ass like he deserves.”

Sam stares at him, trying to muster just a tiny bit of affection towards him, but there’s nothing. She’s an empty well.

“Back in the mines… there should be a gun and some bullets near the water basin. I… was kind of hoping he would find it. If, you know... So that he would have a choice.”

 

8.

“Chris is still asleep, but he’d like you to have this,” Ash says when they are finally left alone. “I mean, it’s technically a present from his mother to me, but-”

“Thank you,” mumbles Sam, because that’s what she’s supposed to do.

 _What is this, “Fellowship of the Ring”?_ She hears Josh as if he was standing right next to her, voice dripping with sarcasm. It doesn’t frighten her. It’s comforting. He never really left, just walked a bit further away.

 _As long as you’re not Gollum,_ she answers him. And now she’s a little scared.

She needs to focus. There is no time.

“Tell Josh,” starts the red-head dramatically, then pauses. Sam’s almost out of patience. “Tell him I’m sorry for the scissors. And for everything. And that we’re even.”

Sam nods in agreement, drapes the woolen, pink scarf around her face to hide it, and walks out of the hospital.

 

9.

She’s desperate to fall asleep on the bus, to get a few hours of rest, but she spends the ride on the edge of reality and fantasy. She supposes it’s even more exhausting than any nightmare could ever be, but she is allowed to be afraid of one thing, so she chooses to stare at her own reflection instead of closing her eyes.

The pink light of the sunrise is making the hills and mountains look like something out of a Pixar movie, but does nothing to make her feel less anxious. Ashley’s scarf keeps her warm, but she misses her own red one, and she wishes she could have her old boots back, because while Chris’ mother had good intentions, she’s never experienced a weather this cold. The two sweaters she’s wearing are itchy, and her bra doesn’t fit, and the jeans are a bit too tight, and climbing is going to be such a pain…

But the thing she misses the most is her phone: her collection of funny pictures with her very-alive-and-very-not-traumatized friends, the messages from Josh and Chris from two years ago (which, to be honest, consisted mostly of ancient memes), recordings of Beth playing the piano, a video of her and Hannah reenacting the dance from the _Breakfast Club_ , and at once she starts feeling such heated hatred for Josh, for his therapist, for his parents, for _Hannah_ , that she cannot breathe. The pain puncturing her chest twists her stomach into cold knots, making her entire body shake in vicious, silent rage.

She doesn’t cry. There’s no point.

 


	2. The city dolent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Through me the way is to the city dolent;  
> Through me the way is to eternal dole;  
> Through me the way among the people lost."  
> \---Dante Alighieri, _Inferno_

10.

She guiltily eats another sandwich just outside the gate leading to the lodge. One, two, three, four. Five left. Two bottles of water, nudging her waist with their plastic edges. Two Snickers in the back pockets of her jeans, in case she loses the jacket. One vital lesson she’d learned from all this: Clothes come and go when you least expect them to.

In one of her sweaters’ pocket she carries matches, some stolen bandages and chalk - the kind she used to play with as a child. The latter was as close to Ariadne’s thread as she could get on such a short notice.

She can hear people working nearby, and she’s mad at herself for not getting here sooner. It’s much easier to avoid being seen in the dark. But then again, the Blackwood Pines’ police department is probably the worst in the country, and she had outsmarted several wendigos. Worst case scenario, they just send her back.

She tries not to think about how tempting that thought suddenly is. 

 

11.

She’s waiting in the shadows for two men to move away from the door. They’re laughing, carelessly. She doesn’t analyze how it makes her feel.

She’s going to have to make a run for it, but hasn’t decided whether to go through the tunnel, or down the mountains.

She’s got no idea how many wendigos there are still left. She secretly hopes there’s none, but that would be too good to be true. It would be easier to just go through the Sanatorium and down the mines. Maybe Josh is somewhere down there, walking in circles, confused, sick with panic, finding nothing but corpses and-

God. If he’d found the diary… what would he make of it? Would he understand what had happened? How would that make him feel? Would it prevent him from-

In his state? With anti-depressants messing with his brain? In the caves in which his sisters-

Oh, God, Beth’s head. Emily said she’d found it, what if- 

She slaps her own cheek, hard. There’s no time for this.

_I had no idea you like it rough, Sammy._

She takes out Emily’s phone. Chris was right, the signal strength was atrocious here, but she could still send him messages with one bar. There’s no password needed; everyone knew that touching Em’s stuff was like prodding a lion with a short stick. 

This is a bit like finding Picasso’s lost painting or something, and only the strings of her morality (weaker with every second) stop her from delving into her texts. Instead, she composes her own.

— _Emily, 02.04.15 8:1_ 2am

“ill tryn tto go the same way we went afted mike.. bassicaly follow myown footsteps”

 

She doesn’t realize how hard she’s shaking until she starts writing, but she’s got nothing to prove to anyone, and every second was precious. The men were bumbling something about a coffee break.

— _Emily, 02.04.15 8:1_ 2am

“give me 6h”

_Run, Sammy, run,_ sings the voice in her head, and she runs, and sneaks, and disappears.

The stench of burnt wood and flesh would be disgusting to her two days ago. Now she’s just trying to step as carefully as possible so that the stairs don’t crumble under her feet. 

She reaches the end of them happily, and wonders how much luck she’s got left.

 

12.

Her steps echo somberly, and she would love to ignore the sound and just focus on walking, but she needs her senses sharp enough to hear a spider skittering nearby. Or something else.

She’s such a fucking idiot. She’s exhausted, and her nose is runny, and her head feels oddly warm, and  _she_ is supposed to save him? She should get back up there, apologize to the policemen for ignoring their stupid tape, and ask them to come with her. But she knows she’s going to have to climb something eventually, and they’re not going to trust her, and they’re going to try to stop her.

She supposes that killing wendigos is, in a way, easier than getting rid of well-intentioned people.

 

13.

Yelps of a desperate female pierce through the eerie silence like bullets, but she has been warned, she doesn’t even stumble. Ashley had carried the old man’s journal with her and read the most interesting paragraphs out loud, ever the bookworm. And yet…

_What if it really is Jessica? The Jessica you remember, her very essence, not just the vessel you supposedly rescued?_

Sam bites her lower lip painfully.

_You’ve seen wendigo souls separate from their bodies._

She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t have to, it’s in her head. The words in her head are only thoughts. And thoughts are of her own making.

Right?

 

14.

She’s been walking for over an hour now, she’s sure.

The last time she was here, she was with her friends. Sure, they all lowkey hated each other, but at least they were there. They didn’t want to split and be like the stupid kids from horror movies.

_And here you are, recasted in the sequel._

The last time she was here, she was scared. But she was also hopeful, and there was a tiny, shameful part of her who  _enjoyed all that_ , who loved the thrill of adventure, of a challenge. Being pranked by Chris or Josh was never really fun to her, because she couldn’t do anything about it. She couldn’t stop it, couldn’t prevent it, couldn’t react properly. 

_Like by decapitating someone with a shovel?_

It was a  _something,_ not a  _someone_ , she knows. She doesn’t blame herself. 

At least she didn’t cheat on her girlfriend and then almost shot her ex.

The thought is so sudden it nearly stopped her in her tracks.

Does she blame Mike after all? No, no, how could she? If it wasn’t for him, they wouldn’t have had survived. He’s brave and kind, even if he does have a problem with keeping  _it_ in his pants.

_He was the one who bound me. He hit me. He hurt me. Hurting me hurts you, too, remember? That’s what you‘d said when you saw my scars. That we’re in this together._

They were. They are.

_He left me there. All alone. Twice. Out in the cold to die, like a fucking coward._

No, no, no, she doesn’t think that way, everyone was under such pressure that night, nobody was- 

She stops, catching the breath she didn’t realize she’d lost. She’s dizzy and shivering. Her blood is pumping so fast that she can hear nothing but its quiet whisper. She takes a deep breath. The air smells of ice and tastes a bit different - not of copper, but mold. She must be close to the surface.

The thought of climbing should be unappealing, with her scraped knee bleeding and hurting like a bitch, with her vesicles having vesicles, with fresh scabs on her hands. But years of this being her way of relieving stress just can’t be forgotten. There’s something Pavlovian about how the knots of stress on her back relax instantly the second she pulls herself up for the first time. 

_I’d say it’s more like a Stockholm syndrome._

“Shut up, Josh, just shut up, shut up!” 

The cave echoes with her scream.

_Up, up,_ up she goes. 

 

15.

She’s adventurous, diligent, considerate.

She’s terrified, and tired, and lonely. 

The sky is grey, dark, and daunting, heavy with the promise of the oncoming storm. She used to love blizzards - they were magical to a girl born and raised in LA, something straight out of movies or National Geographic. But all this weather does now is remind her of the two worst nights of her life.

She hears a wolf howling nearby, and if she was still the girl from two days ago, she would have felt a twinge of excitement. Instead, it’s just another thing to be afraid of. This mountain is full of crazy shit. She was the only one who believed Matt when he had told them about the weird-ass herd of deer. 

She picks up the pace, checking the phone. No signal. No new messages, either, but her own delivered.

She curses when she sees she’s used 15% of the battery already.

 

16.

The cave looks bigger than the last time she was here with Mike. But that time she had had adrenaline pulsing in her veins, had just wounded and killed a living creature for the first time in her life, had survived her first fire explosion. She had felt as tall as Mike back then, maybe even a little taller. 

Now she is… well, if not Sam, then at least someone of her height.

There’s no way he’s going to be there. No way in hell. The doors were open, he could leave any time he wanted. There’s no way he’s in there.

_Alive._

The silence is haunting, broken only by the sound of droplets hitting on water. The regularity of it is maddening.

The voice in her head hums in agreement.

 

17.

She finds the gun, and later the bullets. The diary lies where they’d left it. She doesn’t know whether she should be happy about it or not. Either way, her only emotion is fear.

It is fear that clenches her throat when she wants to yell his name.

It is fear that makes her want to turn around and run as fast as she can, back to her friends.. or what is left of them.

It is fear that stops her from doing so. 

She keeps it high above her head as she crosses the water. She’s glad it’s not very deep. It’s colder than she remembers, but she’s fine. She’s _fine_ .

There’s no trace of him anywhere. The old guy’s headless corpse has started decomposing and stinks so bad that it’s making her want to retch, but she forces herself to keep going.

She delves deeper into the darkness. She doesn’t use the flashlight app to save the battery, and the light coming from the screen gives very little comfort. She gets freaked out by her own shadow a few times, but it truly seems that she’s the only person alive in there. Every once in awhile she draws arrows with chalk, adding a frowny face every time she gets a little jittery. It’s very Sam-like. Knowing that makes her feel a bit better.

She has no idea where she is or where she’s going.

She doesn’t even know what for.

 

18.

There’s a whimper. 

It’s undoubtedly a human whimper, but she knows better than to trust the certain.

However, she knows that this was Hannah’s territory. It must’ve been. And the wendigos were definitely not team players. Maybe it truly  _was_ him.

She marks the wall with a big exclamation point and drops the chalk.

_Don’t be a fucking pussy Sammy, isn’t this what you came here for?_

This is precisely what she came here for.

The sound of despair amplifies, and now she is sure, she definitely recognizes this voice. She’s heard it almost every day for the first few months of last year, exactly in this cadence, sometimes in person, but most often on the phone. It was the source of her own sorrow, her longing, her empathetic urge to take his pain away.

Once she sees him move, she shoots.

 


	3. Sighs and lamentations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Here sighs and lamentations and loud cries  
> were echoing across the starless air,  
> so that, as soon as I set out, I wept."  
> \---Dante Alighieri, _Inferno_

 

19.

The wendigo dodges the bullet and jumps onto the opposite wall. She can’t see him all that well in the dim light of the cave, but he must be one of the miners from the Sanatorium. Mike had said that there were dozens of them in there. Maybe the explosion had opened one of the cages.

Or all of them.

He shrieks. His incandescent eyes seem to drill right through her, unseeingly. She is quiet, still, save for the frantic beating of her heart which makes her chest pulsate like crazy.

She sees him approach her, but she is sure he doesn’t actually know where she is.

It’s not like she has to wrestle it to death. She just needs stay calm. It’s easy, like trying not to fall asleep during Spanish class.

_Señor Padilla was marginally more understanding than what you’re facing now, though._

The creature walks past her and that’s her cue. She shoots it in the head in one, swift motion, and runs, not thinking where this god damned corridor leads, as long as it isn’t to her death or another nest of wendigos, not even looking if she got him - but she did.

Oh, what she wouldn’t give for some conveniently placed fuel tank!

Her knee is hurting, but she doesn’t stop, the fucking cave has to end somewhere, right?

It does, and she doesn’t even notice when she starts falling down.

 

20.

She opens up her eyes after what feels like hours later. Her head hurts like a bitch, and though she’s positive she didn’t break anything, every inch of her body seems to be bruised.

There’s something sticky coming from her stomach, and she gets a mild panic attack when she thinks it’s blood, but it’s only jelly. Raspberry.

She feels like laughing.

She vomits instead.

 

21.

Her hair smells of digested potato soup and she is tempted to use some of the water to rinse it off. She decides against it, after careful consideration. You can get used to bad smells, and she’s got no idea if there’s any source of water down here and can’t allow herself to lose time by trying to find it.

Time. Right. She needs to get up. She’s looking for something. Something important.

Easier said than done, though. She uses the almost completely flat wall behind her as leverage, because she suddenly sees stars. The ringing in her head is unbearable, and she thinks she would rather trade it for another workout session with a wendigo.

She wants to sit back down, maybe take a nap-

_Come on, Sammy. You’re better than that._

Right.

She leans against the rock, blinking slowly. The ringing subsides gradually, leaving her pleasantly dazed. She’s fine. She just needs to walk it off.

 

22.

Emily’s phone screen is full of scratches, and she feels bad about it for almost three seconds.

Then she remembers that she’s here because of _her._ Her and Jess and Mike, and her stupid fucking jealousy, and the disgusting, unhealthy love polygon, and everyone’s inability to just get the fuck along like adults and friends should-

_So you think she deserved it?_

What, deserved what, exactly? A broken phone? Some bite mark on her collarbone? What a fucking joke.

_Would it make you feel better if she got hurt more?_

It would make her feel better if none of this ever happened.

_That’s impossible._

“So fucking what?!” she yells, and she clasps her mouth milliseconds afterwards, but the damage is done.

She stands still for good couple of minutes, but the silence is gravely.

What an adequate phrase. She is going to die here, after all.

 

23.

Her whole world consists of six digits: 15:26, 62%.

She’s shivering in the cold, teeth clattering like Irish dancers’ heels, but something urges her to go forward. Maybe hope, and maybe her survival instinct. Her inner programming.

_Don’t get all “True Detective” on me, Sammy._

She remembers, with a sudden clarity, evenings spent on binge-watching movie trilogies and tv-series, arguments over Netflix and cold lemonade. Hannah’s lemonade was to die for, not too sweet, but flavorful, with just a pinch of ginger at the bottom and fresh mint floating on the surface. She remembers Josh tickling her during the worst possible moments of horror movies to freak her out. She remembers Beth pointing out every possible plot hole, ruining some of the most suspenseful and groundbreaking plot twists in the history of cinema by calling them out in the first 15 minutes. It would get so bad that they would take turns covering her mouth.

“No matter what happens, whether I find you or not, this is never coming back,” she says, her voice hoarse from the cold and dehydration, but steady.

_All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain._

“What’s the point of me being here?”

_None whatsoever. I am probably already dead. Or simply batshit insane with grief. Or taking solid bites from the old guy’s head. I might even attack you._

“So I shouldn’t have come here.”

_You would. No matter what anyone would have told you, you would anyway. That’s just who you are._

“I wish this had never happened.”

_I never took supernatural bullshit into account. But no matter what I tell you, you’re going to keep blaming me anyway._

She doesn’t answer.

She keeps on moving.

 

24.

The voice in her head is as silent as her surroundings. She can’t say she misses it.

The corridor of stone seems to be getting smaller, enveloping her closer and closer, tighter and tighter. She was never claustrophobic, but the thought of having to squeeze through anywhere to get _nowhere_ is very unappealing.

16:14, 56%.

She eats one of the squished sandwiches, forcing herself to not throw up again by taking a few sips of water. She feels a little better. Still a bit as if she just came back from a rollercoaster ride, but better.

One of the walls has the tiniest stream of water coming from above, and she uses it to wash her hands, sticky with mud, dirt and jam. Then, she washes her face, and a moment of discomfort turns into her splashing her feverishly hot face repeatedly, gargling, but not swallowing.

She feels more _Sam_ than she has in the last two days, and with that comes the realization that she’s brave, and selfless, and that she can feel a slight breeze coming from ahead, and that once she gets out she is going to patiently wait for help.

She’s done enough.

 

25.

Sunlight is blinding her. Or at least that’s how she explains the tears forming in her eyes when she sees how absurdly microscopic the crack between the rocks is.

A dead end. Another pretty fucking fitting term.

She needs to go all the way back.

Or, she thinks, staring at her shotgun, remain here.

Her throat grows tighter. Her chest grows warmer. Her lips begin trembling, the corners of her mouth twisting into a caricatural grimace. She lets out a stifled sob, then another, and another, and soon her entire body is shaking in despair, tears burning her face, streaming down her cheeks in symmetrical arches. And then she starts yelling, trying to punch her way through, out, away from here, and she can taste nothing but salt on her bare teeth.

She falls down on knees, her hands hurting and dripping with blood.

She grieves.

 

26.

_Ah. You’re back._

She could say the same thing. She’s too tired to open her mouth, however.

She had turned off Emily’s phone to save the battery, so she’s been sleepwalking for god knows how long, but she doesn’t care anymore. She’s been drawing a continuous line on the nearest wall, and the piece of slightly moist chalk is almost short enough to be hidden by her fingers now.

It all feels like a nightmarish dream she can’t wake up from.

_How cliche. And you’re going to be fine._

She doesn’t think so. She’s tired. Hungry. Thirsty. Desperate for human interaction. Desperate for a non-lethal touch.

She misses her parents. They should be on their way right now. A 4 hours flight for naught. Or for a funeral.

She wonders if she and Josh would get symbolic graves next to each other. Maybe a shared ceremony with Beth and Hannah. All four of them, together again.

_Jesus Christ, you’re so morbid. It’s been maybe 10 hours. You’re going to get through this._

Hannah must have thought so, too.

 

27.

She drains one of the bottles. It’s against her nature to litter, even hundreds of feet underground, so she carries the empty bottle with herself. It doesn’t help in lifting up her spirits in the least, but it’s a start. Her head radiates with pain. It has been hurting for so long that she doesn’t remember what it was like to not force herself to think.

She’s humming, then singing some silly melody, because she doesn’t have much to lose besides her sanity, and if she meets a wendigo, well, at least that’s an excuse to, literally, blow her own mind.

_Hold your horses there, silly._

The singing does help, however. Makes her feel less like the horse from _The Neverending Story_. She goes through the one sung by the dwarves from Disney’s _Snow White_ , because (get it?) she’s in the mine. Then there’s _Wonderwall,_ as it’s the only song she knows how to play on her imaginary guitar. She’s in the middle of the chorus from the opening of _Friends_ when something in the air changes.

No, not in the way it smells, the… atmosphere? It’s a different silence than before.

The forced kind. The tense kind.

There is something there.

She doesn’t actually want to die, it turns out. Though she sees well enough in the dark now, she pulls out the phone from her pocket, turns on the flashlight and settles it under her chin. It wouldn’t fall out, and she could easily stop the light just by lowering her head.

She readies the gun.

She’s so tense she gets annoyed at her own breathing.

The _thing_ inhales suddenly, and now she knows where-

Josh is staring at her like a scared rabbit, his chin covered in blood.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction - one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal._ \- True Detective  
>  _All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain._ \- Blade Runner


	4. Our emptiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Now you know how much my love for you  
> burns deep in me  
> when I forget about our emptiness,  
> and deal with shadows as with solid things."  
> \---Dante Aligieri, _"Purgatory"_

28.

He doesn’t think she’s real. The feeling’s mutual.

They stare at each other in silence, a bit like strangers, a bit like enemies. The hand on the gun trigger twitches.

She wishes for the blood to be his. There’s no sign of the old guy’s head, and she morbidly hopes the other wendigos had found it, but she cannot be sure. His lips are chopped - he must have been chewing on his lower lip maniacally. There are multiple cuts, wounds and bruises on his very, very dirty face.

Her mouth is dry. She doesn't realize she’s been holding her breath.

“Josh?” she tries, but it only makes him push his body closer to the wall, as if wanting to merge with it, to become it, to hide away from her.

He’s whimpering, and his eyes are begging for her to leave.

She moves no closer. Instead, she slowly puts the weapon away.

“Josh. Joshua. Do you know who I am?”

He doesn’t respond, but starts fidgeting and murmuring to himself. His mouth twists in a weird grimace, and his eyes remind her of Jess when she got into the hospital.

“Josh. I’m Sam. Your friend, Sam. I came here to help you. I came for you.”

“N-no. N-n-no, don’t. Please don’t. Please-”

“I don’t want to hurt you. Do you want me to turn down the light, Josh?”

He doesn’t see her. He’s not even talking to her anymore, just babbling nonsensical words.

She should feel sorry for him, she knows. Instead, she just feels tired and annoyed. They don’t have time for this.

She turns off the flashlight, the phone’s dimly lit screen becoming the only weak source of light. Saving battery is important, but she needs to be able to see his face.

She settles on the opposite side of the tunnel, trying not to touch him in any way.

“Josh, I am Sam,” she repeats slowly, trying desperately not to snap. She will not slap him. She refuses. “Your best friend. I am here, with you, in the cave. There’s nothing here but us. I need you to talk to me, Josh. We need to get out of here.”

“Please don’t hurt me, please, don’t-”

“I am not going to hurt you. I’m Sam. I’m real. You’re safe with me, Josh.”

 

29.

“No! Don’t you do this to me, no! No!”

“Josh, calm down, it’s okay, there’s nobody here-”

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, please leave me alone, leave me alone!”

He’s sobbing, head between his knees, swaying from side to side.

“Please, we gotta get moving, it’s not safe out here-”

She reaches out to touch him, but he jerks away. There’s so much hatred and fear written in his face that she freezes in shock. His eyes are red and glistening, forehead pearled with sweat. He’s baring his teeth like an angry animal.

Something tugs at her heart, hard, and she finds herself trembling.

She withdraws her hand slowly. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whimpers, and continues to weep, staring directly at her face without seeing it. 

She turns off the phone.

 

30.

He’s rocking himself back and forth like a metronome, keening quietly, and he sounds so boyish and small that she feels as if her heart is about to burst.

She’s been talking to him, methodically repeating his name like a chorus, for over an hour now. Her throat is sore, and her voice is rough, but she doesn’t caret. He doesn’t either, or so it seems.

She tells him funny stories from her childhood, and remembering those times of careless joy and safety is soothing. She tells him about her friends from elementary school, and how she used to be bullied for being chubby and having breasts as a twelve year old, and how she started resenting her femininity for it. She tells him about how Hannah, with her unapologetic love for everything cute and girly, changed that gradually. He fidgets at every mention of his sisters’ name.

She tries to feed him with a (now completely flat and a bit moist) Snickers, but he slaps her hand away in a wild flail of arms.

She’s out of good memories after that, and a bit out of her mind, so she starts telling him the plot of  _Jurassic Park_ . Her headache slowly ceases.

 

31.

“Sam…”

“Yes, Josh, that’s me. I’m here. Can you tell me what you’re seeing?”

“There are butterflies… coming out of your mouth…”

“That’s gross.”

“I know,” he says simply. A pause. “Sam?”

“I’m here. Are you thirsty?”

“Yes,” he mumbles softly.

“I don’t have much, I’m sorry. I’ve been searching for you for so long-”

“How long?” Josh asks, eyes snapping wide open with panic.

“Um…”

20:35, 23%.

“About twelve hours,” she announces, handing him an open bottle of water. “Feels like way longer. Don’t drink all of it, please.”

They sit in silence. He gives her the half-full bottle back, and she closes it after taking a sip.

“We need to find a way out. And more water. Did you find anything to drink nearby?”

He shakes his head no. 

“I don’t remember,” he adds, quietly, shutting his eyes again. “I think I must’ve slept through most of… I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, Josh, we’re going to have a lot of time to figure it all out later,” she ensures him, soothingly. “Do you think you’re ready to eat? Or do you want to wait for a little longer?”

“Why are you here?”

He refuses to look at her. Hallucinations again?

“I’m Sam,” she repeats for what must be the thousandth time. “I’m here to get you-”

“No, _why_ are _you_ here?”

“This isn’t the best time and place for metaphysics-”

“Philosophy, if anything.” 

“Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“ _Sam_ antics. How exciting.”

“It is when you lead such an uneventful life as ours,” she shrugs, ignoring the pun.

He glances at her. The corners of her lips twitch.

“Why are you alone in here? Is everyone else-” He pauses, and she can sense another panic attack of his coming even before he does, so she interrupts him.

“Let’s make a deal. You eat, I tell you anything you want to know.”

“Anything?”

“Anything,” she nods, handing him a sandwich. He takes a big bite of it with unsureness, as if expecting it to turn into a can of worms any minute. Or maybe he does see it as worms, but trusts her enough. She doesn’t really know how hallucinations work.

“So,” he starts, one sandwich later, licking raspberry jam off his undoubtedly black-with-dirt fingers. “Who did you lose your virginity to?”

His voice is serious, raspy, exhausted. There’s no trace of humor in it. His face is emotionless. But he’s joking. He’s definitely joking, in a monster-infested mine, forgotten by people and god, after months of severe depression and days of withdrawal-caused hallucinations.

A strangled noise comes out of her throat, and she can’t tell whether she’s crying, or laughing, or both, but she’s shaking like a fish out of the water, fighting for air, and the next thing she knows is Josh’s slightly wet hand covering her own, and they’re both trapped in this shithole, and they’re hurting, and things will never be the same, but Josh  _survived_ .

 

32.

She’s still heaving with dry sobs while examining his shoulder wound. The dressing is soaked with dark-red blood, filling her nostrils with its metallic smell like a poisonous gas. He took care of it sloppily and hastily, but it doesn’t look infected. Just swollen. And painful.

Guilt strikes her with so much force she bites her lip. He notices.

“I’m just… I’m so sorry. I had no idea Ashley had stabbed you. Back then. Before.”

“You couldn’t have known,” he says in a monotone voice.

“Yes, but it’s… making me so angry. At us. At Mike.”

“He had had no idea either,” he responds with a note of resentment. “He thought- You know what he’d thought. And he was right.”

“He wasn’t,” she shakes her head so vigorously that strands of her hair get in mouth. “He wasn’t. Jess is-”

Yes, how is Jess, exactly? Fine? She’s the farthest from being fine. 

“Alive.”

Perfect. And true. And not anxiety-fueling. 

“So is everyone else,” she adds. There’s a flash of relief in his eyes, and he looks like a dog who’s just been released from the cone of shame. Minus the excitement that usually followed such a thing. 

He rests his forehead in the crook of her neck and breathes in and out. Deeply, slowly, continuously.

She touches the back of his head attentively, and she can feel his shoulder muscles tensing and forcefully relaxing with a small shiver. She buries her hand in his soft curls, and massages his scalp tenderly. Her knuckles hurt every time she straightens her fingers, but the comfort he seems to be receiving makes it worth it. He melts under her touch.

She gets back to bandaging his wound and ignores the sudden wetness under her ear. He leans back slowly, sniffs, and wipes at his nose and jaw with the back of his hand. 

“Gross, Josh.”

“Alas, m’lady, but I seem to have forgotten my embroidered silken handkerchief today,” he says in his worst british accent.

“Quite unfortunate, milord, that is indeed quite unfortunate,” she joins in. “Think of your reputation, though, whatever shall you do if someone less sympathetic notices?” 

“I shall tell them to go fuck themselves immediately,” he announces with a straight face.

She doesn’t even notice when her lips soften into a small smile.

 

33.

She’s relieved to see him being able to walk without her help, only slightly limping. She was able to coerce him into taking her scarf, but he didn’t agree to take her jacket, too. 

“Not my color,” he waved his hand dismissively. “Besides, I’m used to being cold at this point.”

“You won’t be saying that when we finally reach the outside.”

They argue about it for a while, if only to make themselves feel warmer. She even tries to put it on him by force, but he just laughs her off when the sleeves don’t even go to his elbows.

“What is this, a jacket for ants?”

She sticks out her tongue at him, and he takes her by the hand. 

She doesn’t make a sound, even though it hurts like hell. It feels good to be touched. His fingers are ice-cold on her skin.

 

34.

She finally tells him all about the manner in which the lodge had burned down. Briefly. The censored version.

“I’m glad,” is his only response.

Glad to see the place where the worst days of their lives happened? How surprising.

“I’m kind of worried about your parents’ reaction, to be honest. I thought they were going to sell it.”

“Yeah, well, they kinda already did,” he says in an indifferent voice. “Some people were going to see it next week. I volunteered to start packing our things.”

She stops abruptly, gaping at him.

“Oh my god. Melinda is going to kill me,” she whimpers.

“No, she’s going to kill _me_.”

“Oh, man, you’re totally right! I bothered all the way down here for nothing! What was even the point, the real threat is out there!”

She’s being overly dramatic for the sake of comedy, but she knows she said something wrong when he tries to let go of her hand.

“Hey, hey,” she tugs at his arm. “Hey, look at me. I’m just kidding. Your parents are worried sick about you, they don’t care about some pile of wood and stone. And certainly not about money.”

“You shouldn’t have come here,” he states grimly.”You should have just left me here.”

It stirs something inside her. 

She hates not being able to see his face. It’s just his long, thin fingers trying to escape her own, and his gruff, apathetic voice. White noise is filling up her head again, it resonates within her like a bell of bronze, and she can sense the incoming migraine. She’s exhausted, and she just wants to get to the end of the tunnel without having to encourage him every five minutes. In a split second every traumatic image of the past days flashes in front of her eyes, and suddenly, at once, she is  _done_ . 

“Listen up, asshole, cause I won’t be saying it twice,” she says through clenched teeth, pinning him to the nearby wall. She hears him inhale sharply through his nose. “I’ve had no choice but to come here. There was no other option. I knew what’s in here, and believe me, I would give anything to unsee it, but then I would also have to forget that we left you here. To die. Or worse. And if you think I would be able to just do that, I want nothing to do with you.”

She’s standing on her tiptoes, and it would be humiliating if she wasn’t so annoyed. And she is  _so_ fucking  _annoyed_ , at the pain in her legs and knuckles, at how her jeans keep slightly defrosting every once in awhile due to her movement, only to freeze up again a couple of minutes later, at how Josh can’t try harder at faking not-being-scared-and-hopeless, and how she had to act like a ray of sunshine on the anniversary of her best friend’s disappearance for  _his sake_ and all she got in return was a freaking heart attack.

Well, now that she’s thinking about it, she’s furious.

“You know, I’d thought for a shamefully long time that we had a connection. More than friends, less than lovers. Same old, same old. But, thank god, you have removed any doubts that I was anything but your sisters’ useless friend,” she continues, voice dripping with acid. “It’s all so very clear to me now, how blind I was to think that I was being forgiven. That this little trip was your attempt at trying to move on, of getting better, perhaps striving to live a life your sisters would’ve wanted for you. But no. No, it was your take on the Purgatory. I don’t even fucking blame you, really. This isn’t _really_ your fault. But I _forgive you_ , from the bottom of my heart, like adults do. Just don’t you ever dare telling me what I should and shouldn’t have done, because I fucking know.”

His eyes are wide, glistening, hurt. She’s always loved his weirdly big eyes, even with bags under them. They made him look so soft and vulnerable, in contrast to his outgoing persona. It’s still soothing to her, to just stare into them.

She lets go of him, but he stays stay still, paralyzed.

“Sam, I wasn’t… trying to punish you,” he says, barely moving his stiff lips. “It was a prank. I was off my meds.”

“No, Joshy, it was a prank _and_ a punishment, you said so yourself,” she smiles bitterly. “And you were planning on doing it way back. Way, _way_ back. Were you thinking about it all those times we were talking on the phone, late into the night? Crying together? Were you thinking about how I let them down?”

“Please, Sam, stop,” he begs, covering his ears with his shaking hands.

She relaxes the strained muscles of her face with an effort. No use in bringing back the demons. At least not now. She shoves his wrists away from his face, clutching at them painfully.

“I said I forgave you,” she states clearly. “Just… stop testing me.”

 

35.

There’s no light at the end of the tunnel, but at least it ends.

They almost wouldn’t even have noticed if it wasn’t for the sudden abundance of snow under their feet. It brings them to a weird state of mind, something like a careful optimism. A moderate hopefulness.

At least for her. He’s just silent, and holding her hand like it’s something disgusting.

She probably is, for snapping at a mentally ill person in a hostile environment. For telling him those terrible things that were slowly gnawing at her for the last couple of hours. It doesn’t sound like something Sam would be capable of.

She should think about changing her name.  _Sam_ started sounding too much like  _saint_ to her lately. 

There’s a blizzard raging outside, and a pretty intense one. The wind is howling so loudly she can’t even think, so they walk a bit further back. Then she hears a murmur of thunder, and can only sigh in defeat.

So much for getting out of here tonight.

She she sits down, and he follows her lead, like a ragged doll.

He lets go of her hand to wrap his arms around his knees, hiding his face  _away from you_ .

Hello there. She thought the voice would disappear now, go back to his owner, but it seems not. Schizophrenia? Auditory hallucinations? Exhaustion? She doesn’t even care.

She takes out two sandwiches from her pocket and leaves one on the top of his head. He doesn’t react.

_Because he hates you,_ sing-songs the voice. 

This is going to be a long, sleepless night.

 

36.

“Sam?” she hears Josh’s voice echo inside her head.

“Go’way.”

“Sam, you’re shivering like crazy.”

He might be right, she thinks as she repeatedly hits her elbows against the rocky wall.

“Sam?”

“Hmgh?”

“I think we should cuddle.”

She barks with laughter and almost bites off her tongue in the process.

“R-really. Quite. The timing.”

“I’m serious, come here.”

He doesn’t wait for her to move, instead he puts hands under her armpits and lifts her slightly, like a cat, and transports her to the space between his knees.

She tries not to think of it too much. He’s freezing too, and in the end, he does want to survive. But when he unzips her jacket to wrap his hands around her, clinging to her as if his life depended on it (it did, it does), her heart skips a beat.

She hugs him back, timidly. It seems to loosen him up.

His legs are stupidly long around her frame, and she’s been dreaming about this situation (well, not this exact situation, just the cuddling part) for so very long, that she is surprised to find herself not disappointed. His jaw still stinks of blood, the ground is so cold it feels damp, and the thunder makes them jump every once in awhile, but it’s… fine. Maybe so many close to death encounters have lowered her expectations.

He squeezes her nervously, as if he knows what she's thinking about.

"I'm sorry", he whispers into her hair.

 


	5. All the ill deduced

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now knoweth he how all the ill deduced  
> From his good action is not harmful to him,  
> Although the world thereby may be destroyed  
> \---Dante Aligieri, _"Paradise"_

37.

The howling of the wind makes her fantasize about fireplaces, blankets, warm chamomile teas and walls of bricks and glass separating her from the waves of falling snow. All she has, however, is a jacket and a boy she’s not sure what to think think of or to do with, besides keeping him from falling asleep. She’s heard of people dying from sleeping outside during winter. She’s not quite sure how it works.

“Josh,” she calls out when his breathing gets too regular. “If you reach into my pocket you’ll find matches. Please light us both on fire.”

She feels him smile, his cheek pressing to her temple. They’re a ball of tangled limbs, fighting for every bit of warmth they have got left.

“Your thermostat-adjusting skills are poor, but not that poor,” he murmurs back.

“Yeah,” she manages to say. “Hardy har. But seriously, I could use a ba-”

Instantly, her mind hurries to take her back to the bathroom, to the cinema room, to the basement of the lodge. Images blink under her eyes. Sounds flutter in her ears like butterflies.

Josh’s horrified face as the saw cuts through his torso. Josh’s detached face as he announces that he put her through it all as a form of catharsis. Josh’s voice, heavily modulated, created to make her fear for her life. Josh’s normal voice, hateful and venomous, judging her, blaming her. The psycho’s mask. _Josh’s mask_.

She stifles the keening noise bubbling in her throat. He doesn’t need this now. They’re going to talk about it later. With a specialist.

Or they won’t ever see each other again after this is over. It would be understandable. She’s already working overtime as a friend. Or for an ex-friend. For an almost-friend. For a would-be-friend-but-you-failed-to-save-my-sister person. The last one probably means _enemy,_ she figures.

“I could use a cup of something warm.”

Old Josh would make a piss joke. This Josh hugs her tighter.

 

38.

His hallucinations return. She almost doesn’t notice, drowning in her own thoughts, but the little noises he makes start sounding more and more like words, and soon he’s trembling around her, and she has to cover his mouth with her hand to keep him from screaming.

He’s thrashing around her, clinging to her to the point of almost choking, and she doesn’t know what to say, so she just repeats his name.

He’s crying again, and his lips are brushing against her hand frantically, and soon it’s wet from tears and saliva. She lets him talk when she’s sure he won’t yell.

“Not my fault,” he blabbers, begs, bargains, eyes on her, but not seeing her. “I was asleep, I could not know- I could not go- Please, leave me alone, leave me alone-”

She strokes his hair soothingly, telling him that it’s ok, they’re ok, it’s just her, Sam, and she is going to protect him, and that soon, once the sun rises, they’re going to find help.

“Sam, Sam could’ve helped you, not me, not me,” he whispers, and the litany of apologies continues.

She tries to be understanding. She’s supposed to be the empathetic one. The quirky, nature-loving girl, who cries over dead, homeless cats found in dumpsters, who spends her free time volunteering in animal shelters and petitioning for environmental issues nobody seems to care about. _She_ does. She _cares_. She listens, and turns other people’s sins into solvable problems, not asking for anything in return.

That’s her pathology. Compassion.

So if Josh’s words make her cry, she doesn’t allow him to notice.

She lets his words torment her, harden her, release her. All is clear.

_I blamed you this entire time._

She closes her eyes.

 

39.

_Suddenly, it’s March again._

_Her mother insists on taking her to a therapist, but she declines. Plenty of people have gone through the process of mourning without spending hundreds of dollars just to have someone to talk to once a week. Sure, she’s just lost her two best friends. (_ Lost, what a beautiful word. It implies reversibility, it begs to be followed by ‘but’. Hannah and Beth are lost, but people are still looking for them. _) Sure, she had to take a semester off college. (_ Hannah and Beth are lost, but Sam knows how to find the things that go missing. She knows where she’s last seen them. She’s retraced their steps. Then the steps of the searching party, and then every corner of the damn mountain. _) And sure, she can’t leave her bed, but only temporarily. (_ Every corner she could reach without falling to her death, at least. _) But she’s going to be fine. (_ She’s going to be sick again. _)_

_She knows the basics. She used to be into buddhism, in that carefree, curious and easily disinterested way that teenagers and divorced middle-aged people are into things._

_\---_

Lesson one: don’t bottle up your feelings.

_She really tries to answer earnestly to every “how are you feeling?” and “is there anything I could do to help?”, but her honesty only makes people look disappointed and guilty (or worse, worried). So she stops bothering, perfecting her facade of calmness and spreading the aura of slowly-getting-betterness to keep everyone from getting hurt._

_Mom, the only unconvinced one, buys her a diary. Sam pretty much tears the poor thing apart by the time she finds a good quote to start with. Then she realizes her mind is too messed up to form coherent sentences, so she just starts writing random lyrics from songs she doesn’t even particularly like. Then she realizes she remembers some of them because of Hannah’s love for trashy pop songs._

_She throws the overpriced notebook out, and when her parents ask how she’s doing with it, she lies. And from then on, she just smiles and lies, lies and smiles, and her entire being becomes a performance._

_\---_

Lesson two: reach out to your friends and loved ones for support.

 _They don’t really feel like keeping in touch after_ the Incident _. Sam wants to think that they’re feeling guilty, but some part of her says that they’re just ashamed._

_Neither of them were all that close with Hannah ever since Mike and Emily started going out. It was just awkward, that love triangle of theirs, with Mike treating Hannah like a sister while trying to get into everyone else’s pants, with Emily’s power plays and pitying glances, with Hannah’s lovesick letters buried under her bed, as if it was some sort of grave for the butterflies in her stomach._

_She was trying to stay civil during that tragic night and the day that followed, busy with stopping everyone from panicking, and later with Josh, who wanted to straight up kill Mike when he found out what had happened._

_But now, now that she’s got enough time to think it all through, she can’t stop herself from pointing fingers, wallowing in bitterness and if-onlys._

_And then one day Josh calls her, sounding a bit ethereal in the late of night, and from then on she finally has someone to talk to, and it’s a huge relief, even though she mostly listens. It’s in her nature._

_\---_

Lesson three: try to let go, but give yourself time.

_She’s fine, she thinks as she jogs uphill, consciously choosing the same track she and Hannah used to beat every morning for the past few years, with matching Nike shoes and synchronized playlists, breaths and heartbeats._

_She’s fine, she thinks as she automatically tries to text Beth whenever someone pisses her off, and then realizes her phone is gone, just like her, so she won’t be getting any silly pick-me-up cat pictures ever again._

_She’s fine, she thinks as she avoids Melinda and Bob Washington’s gaze whenever she visits their son, because there’s nothing in their eyes but tiredness, but soul-wrenching fatigue that leaves no room for grief or sadness or hope._

_She’s fine, she thinks as she watches bad horror movies with Josh, and after a few weeks of it she’s immune to gore and blood. She’s not sure it’s healthy, but it’s the only thing that can keep him focused._

_She’s fine, she thinks as she notices the scars on his arms and thighs, and she acts like she buys his lies about getting into a catfight “with honest to god cats for a change”. (He jokes sometimes, and if they have anything in common, it’s the paranoid_ I’m fine _look on their faces whenever they smile.)_

_She’s not fine, she knows, and the weight of living crushes her, pain deep and wrenching, heart torn in three. The world around her is spinning, shattering, splintering. She weeps into her pillow, blindly choosing the only person whose presence she can handle in this state._

“ _Josh? Talk to me, please.” Her words are wet and don’t sound much like words at all, but he understands, like he always does, always did._

“ _I’m here, Sammy,” he says simply, and he never sounds sleepy when it’s dark outside._

 

40.

When she opens her eyes, she’s nauseous and lying on the ground. She thinks she’s not eaten enough to be able to throw up, but she still manages to choke on her own vomit before Josh turns her on the side. There’s not much of it, and it’s almost as if her body wanted to punish her on principle. She breathes through her mouth shakily for a while, and makes rather gross noises with her throat as she tries not to spit out her intestines. The acidic burning on her tongue is not helping.

“I’m here, Sammy, it’s ok, it’s ok,” she hears him say as he helps her sit up, and shortly after, she tastes water. He's gathered her hair neatly into one hand, and it makes her remember how he was always the one to take care of Hannah whenever she would drink too much.

She gulps down what’s left of the contents of the bottle, and she wonders what the hell they’re doing in this cold, and why are her hands red with dried blood, and then she can’t wonder about anything anymore, because a headache fries her brain like lightning.

Her vision’s hazy, and her eyes are aflame.

He doesn’t say anything, as if aware of the ringing in her ears, but his thumb moves against the nape of her neck tentatively, soothingly. It tickles her spine.

For a second they’re both back in Los Angeles, sitting on his couch, watching something idiotic, acting like there’s no tension between them whatsoever, teasing each other with stray touches and meaningful smiles, waiting for the other one to take the risk. The innocence of it takes her breath away, and molds her face into an ugly grimace.

_All gone, like tears in rain._

They sit in silence, shoulder to shoulder, jackets unzipped. His fingers caress the curve of her neck (collarbone to ear, ear to collarbone, his touch as familiar as a nursery rhyme), and her fingers tremble with the feeling of painful hollowness resonating in her core.

_You’re the only one who understands me._

All fake. Fake, fake, fake.

She’s shuddering with helplessness, and he must be thinking she’s just cold, and yes, that she is, but it’s the kind of coldness which runs under your skin, from the heart through arteries and veins and back.

She pushes him away when he tries to embrace her. The world is whirling around her, and words aren’t too happy to roll off her tongue, but she manages to tell him to stay away. His eyes are clear and focused, and he doesn't object or hesitate when she moves away from him further.

 

41.

“ _I’m so, so sorry,” Josh says on the phone on one of the bad nights, the ones which make her want to steal her father’s car keys and drive to be with him. “I’m sorry I’m like this.”_

_It breaks her heart that he must deal with everything on his own. (He has a therapist, she remembers, but they don’t get along.) It breaks her heart he wouldn’t let her in, not unless she drove straight into his living room, House MD style._

_She tells him that last part once he calms down, and he snorts and sings “Through the window, through the wall” in response._

_It always amazes her how quickly his vulnerable side makes room for the joking (joshing) machine he usually is. Was. Used to be. She wonders if he himself knows when he’s putting on the mask._

_On the good nights, he goes on about his nightmares, uses words like ‘ephemeral’ and ‘phantasmagoria’, or gets worked up about something like the Lucifer effect. He never mentions the names of his sisters or anyone who was with them on that fatal day. (Their_ _friends_ _.)_

_On the bad nights, he falls asleep, lulled by the sound of her breathing and the recordings of Beth playing the piano that she always has on._

_His grief is egotistical and all-consuming; he seemingly cares about nothing, but always puts himself first. (Which does not mean that he cares about his own well-being, it just means that the last thing he wants to talk about is someone else’s feelings regarding anything, because they pale in comparison.)_

_But he thanks her, passionately and often, and that’s all she needs to keep picking up his calls._

_\---_

_They always sit in his room when she visits, which is a change in itself. It used to be his sacred ground, which Hannah and Beth (and Sam especially), were not allowed to even see. They would hang out in the living room instead, watch movies, fall asleep on top of each other, one hand in popcorn and the other over someone’s face._

_Melinda and Bob were rarely at home, but their presence was still palpable. They would always make a mess in the kitchen in the morning for their children to clean. They’d leave a weirdly detailed grocery list on the fridge, and never forgot to add Sam’s favourite almond milk to it. They’d bring them desserts from business lunches. They’d let them have a glass of wine when they all managed to have dinner together, as if it was important enough to celebrate. They’d ask the celebrities they worked with to sign notebooks (Hannah), merch (Josh) or shirts (Beth), and never missed any of Hannah’s tournaments._

_Now the house is clean. House catalogue clean. Hospital clean, but with more closed doors, and behind those doors are two rooms under eternal quarantaine. It looks abandoned, no soul roaming its wide corridors except for Josh, but Josh is more like a shadow than a person, or at least not a living one; he’s a ghost in sweaty PJs. Silent, dark-eyed, and oh, so very tired. She sometimes wants to ask him what his unfinished business is, but she’s afraid that she knows already._

_\---_

_In person, he only communicates in movie titles and headshakes, sometimes in uncomfortable grins. Sam likes to think that her smiles are more convincing, but in truth, if it wasn’t for the late night phone calls, she’d have no idea what’s going on inside his head. She still doesn’t, she reminds herself, but it’s nice to think that they have some sort of connection thing going on, even if that connection must involve a telephone line._

_\---_

_Their physical contact is limited. Neither of them know how to cross the river called Despair, and they can hardly go back to their previous relationship, which involved a lot of mutual pining, confusion and Hannah’s meddling. What was easy then comes as a hardship now. Sometime in June they make out while watching “The outlaw Josie Wales” for no reason whatsoever and with no preamble. (He used to like westerns better than horrors, but the stories of his heroes don’t hold his attention anymore.) It isn’t the greatest way to resolve the bottled up sexual tension of the last few years, but it’s something. Something comforting. She remembers it in flashes; wet lips on wet faces; sad eyes and bony fingers on prominent collarbones._

_She doesn’t stay the night, neither then nor ever. He calls her the next day and acts like nothing’s happened._

_\---_

_He stops calling altogether come late Autumn, but they send each other text messages. She doesn’t have the time to worry about it much; college is hell. She whines to him about homework and he makes fun of his therapist._

_In general, he seems to be doing better, and she’s… trying. She laughs occasionally, and sometimes it’s even genuine. She meets new people, gets a Facebook account, goes on a date once just to prove something, starts volunteering at her favourite animal shelter again. She sends birthday wishes to Matt and Ash, and keeps in touch with Chris. They’d mostly talk about Josh before, but now they also grab a cup of coffee every once in a while. (They mostly talk about Josh still, but in a less concerned tone)._

_And then, one day, she receives a video message, and she finally starts to believe that, yeah, it’s been a rough year, but they’re going to get through this together, she and Josh and Chris, and maybe even the rest of their broken little family. That maybe theirs is not a story about loss, but a story about survival._

 

42.

She opens her eyes, and the light of dawn blinds her. She’s lying down, head in Josh’s lap, with her jacket zipped up and Ashley’s scarf tied loosely around her neck. There’s a memory of wetness on her cheeks, and a thin layer of hoarfrost between her earlobes and jaw.

He’s humming a melody she doesn’t quite recognize, but she’s deeply certain she should. He glances down at her when she shifts slightly. Red, tired eyes meet hers for a mere second before fleeing. He folds his arms.

“If I’m the one to sing it, it’s not scary,” he says in a steady, explanatory voice. It makes her head throb in confusion, but then it hits her.

Hannah’s music box.

He resumes his humming, and in different circumstances she’d be able to fall asleep to the sound of his lovely, caramel and bitter chocolate-tasting voice, but this time it sends unpleasant shivers down her spine. The melody is eerie, but the brilliant light coming from the outside of the tunnel makes it less sad. After a while, he quiets down.

“Thank you for not leaving me here,” she says, and the tension in his shoulders weakens. He lets the silence burn a little between them.

“I had no choice,” he repeats her own words, but there’s no resentment in his tone, no mockery. Just the truth.

She nods and tries to get up, but he holds her down, touching the center of her chest with wide-spread fingers; the gesture reminds her of a spider.

“Do you remember hitting your head on your way here? You probably have a concussion.”

It hurts to remember things, but she deems it possible, so she nods again, a little to the side.

“I had no idea they taught Med 101 in your Psychology course,” she jokes flatly, her voice weak and her throat sore. He doesn’t smile, eyes focused on something ahead of him.

“Hannah used to get them all the time as a kid. She tripped a lot and got hit with a tennis ball too many times to count. She was unlucky like that.”

“Yeah,” she agrees grimly, “she was pretty damn unlucky.”

The corner of his mouth turns upwards, creating a sour grimace on his otherwise stoic face.

“It really was her, wasn’t it? That monster. Hannah.”

She’s tired.

“Yeah.”

“That’s pretty fucked up,” he says through his teeth, his jaw trembling. “And Beth?”

Sam sighs and closes her eyes, but opens them immediately when Hannah’s distorted penmanship starts carving HUNGER HUNGER HUNGER into her eyelids.

“No. The fall must have killed her.”

“Good.”

“She didn’t suffer.”

“Good.”

His hands are shaking, and she doesn’t know if it’s because of fear or rage, but she knows it’s her duty to stop it, whether they’re friends or not ( _they’re_ _not_ ), and whether he hates her and blames her or not ( _he_ _does_ ). She covers his hands with his, and squeezes.

“Look, I know this shit is too much to take at once, I _know_ , but we shouldn’t speak of the devil until we’re far, far away from hell. Once we are, we can talk about this freely, though I understand that you want nothing to do with me, and want to get this over with once and for all here.”

He’s looking at her like she’s the sun, too bright to comprehend, frustrating and painful. And suddenly she realizes he’s blinded, and has been blind this entire time.

“You think _I_ want nothing to do with _you_?”

The pure confusion written in his face is funny enough to stop her from getting mad at him, but it still takes her aback.

“Oh, silly me, I didn’t take your attempt at scaring me to death as a sign of affection, forgive my inferior female brain for being too slow to catch up.”

“Why do you always imply I’m sexist every time you’re in the wrong?”

“Am I really in the wrong, Josh? Or do you just think I’m stupid? You had me running around half-naked, recorded it on camera and planned on making it go viral. You had me tied up to a fucking chair like in some weird BDSM porno. Oh, and let’s not forget the teeny-tiny detail that you blame me for everything that happened.”

“I don’t blame you for anything,” he almost yells, and that’s what sets her off. She sits up rapidly and ignores the wave of dizziness that follows.

“I fucking heard you say it, Josh!”

“Fucking _when_?”

“When you were… hallucinating,” she mumbles, realizing how that sounded.

“How can you believe anything I say when I’m out of my fucking mind? Do you think it works like-like a truth serum? I mean, alcohol?”

“Whatever, you said it, it doesn’t matter when.”

“I don’t think Amnesty International would agree. I’d say I blamed Vladimir Putin if it stopped my sisters’ decaying _corpses_ from telling me to die all the fucking time!”

That shuts her up. They’re breathing loudly, heavily, like they just ran a marathon.

“The prank wasn’t about you,” he says finally, clenching his hands into fists as if fighting back physical pain. “It wasn’t about any of you. It was about me. I thought that once I got things _even_ , I’d finally get better. I’d start… to _feel_ again. Feel like myself _and_ feel things in general. Feel something other than anger.”

His eyes are lime green in the light filling the tunnel, and strangely intense.

“Yes, I blamed you at some point. But that was before we even started… hanging out. You were the only thing that kept me afloat, and all I did in return was hurt you. I was-”

“I blame myself,” she interrupts him with a humorless smile. “And I’ll never stop. You were passed out, you couldn’t do shit. I didn’t run after Hannah because my _jacket_ was in another room and I was afraid I’d catch a _cold_.”

He stares at her, expression unreadable.

“If I ran after her as soon as I saw her leave the room, I’d be able to tackle her down and talk some sense into her. Or I’d climb that fucking wall of ice for her. Or-”

“Or you’d be dead, like Beth.”

“Everything is better than knowing I could have done _something_. You know,” she laughs bitterly, ”I could have stopped the prank altogether, but I wanted her to see how much of an asshole Mike can be sometimes. The thought of her finally letting go was so tempting I hesitated, and then it was too late. So please, just spare me the talk of how I’m a pure, innocent angel trying to rescue you, because I’m _not_. I’m the reason we’re here.”

“But you _are_ an innocent angel who tried to rescue me,” he deadpans.

“Josh-”

“If you want to contend so much, let’s remind ourselves who invited Mike in the first place. I did.”

“Yeah, because Han begged you to do that for weeks. I was the one who gave her the idea to throw a party at the lodge.”

“I thought it was Beth, actually.”

“Nope. Me. All me.”

The corner of his mouth trembles slightly.

“Alright. You know who’s really to blame?”

“If you say ‘Obama’, I swear-”

“I was going to say ‘those meddling kids and their damn dog’, but yeah, he probably had something to do with it.”

She can’t stop herself from smirking. His expression softens.

“This is serious, you jerk. I’m trying to confess.” She tries to frown.

“Sorry, this confessional is for declarations of undying love only. Plus, you need to stop being ridiculous before I start taking your guilt seriously.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Honestly, Sammy, at least fake your own death before you try to out-guilt me. Be professional.”

“Too soon, man. Too soon.”

They eye each other for a moment. She sighs heavily.

“That was probably the weirdest possible way for you to say that you forgive me. I’m slightly impressed.”

“You’re slightly deaf, Sam. I said there’s nothing to forgive. Stop testing me.”

“Make up your own overly dramatic one-liners.”

He smiles a full, tired, brilliant smile, and she’s sure his swollen face must hurt like hell, but she’d rather die than tell him to stop.

“Did I thank you for being here? Honestly, Sammy. Thanks. For everything.”

She reaches out to touch him then, stroking his less-bruised cheek affectionately.

“It’s ok. I’m just glad you weren’t secretly despising me for the past year.”

He freezes.

“You… seriously thought that?”

She nods.

“And you came for me.”

She shrugs and nods again.

“You’re honestly too good to be true. I-”

He doesn’t get to finish the thought. The shriek of a wendigo fills the tunnel like a poisonous gas.

 

43.

Sam’s mind is running wild, frantic with adrenaline.

What the fuck are they supposed to fucking do _now?!_ Do they run? Do they stay still and hope for the best? If they run, they can fall off the mountain or get lost, never to be found by the searching party. If they stay, she’s going to have to teach Josh how to perform Mike’s latest favourite fighting technique: ‘Don’t Move. Don’t Move a Fucking Muscle’.

She readies the gun, sending Josh a questioning glance. He’s the one whose father wanted to be like Guy Fieri (or whoever Chris had mentioned earlier), but instead of offering to take over, he’s stone-still, face frozen in an almost inhumane grimace.

She begs whoever is listening to at least keep him quiet. If she has to, she can just incapacitate him, but she’d rather not. It wouldn’t play well with their current narrative full of forgiveness and dark humor.

The screams of the wendigo reach their peak and die.

 

44.

The skittering sound is getting closer and closer. They definitely should have ran, but now it’s way too late. She’d rather take a shot (ha!) at catching it by surprise. She’s in no shape to move faster than a grandma in heelys anyway.

(Why is her brain trying to make her laugh? It it a signal of her approaching demise? Do some people get a stand up instead of a movie in their last moments?)

She takes one last breath and readies the gun, looking for a pair of incandescent eyes glowing in the dark like flashlights.

She sees them moments later, followed by a playful bark.

“That’s odd,” she thinks, and pulls the trigger.

 

45.

“I can’t believe I almost shot Wolfie,” Sam says for a thousandth time, sobbing into the wolf’s fur.

They’re waiting for a helicopter to pick them up from the rangers’ center. It’s not a place any of them wanted to return to, but it’s warmer, cozier than before.

It has everything to do with Josh, even if he’s silent.

“Sam, please, for the love of chakra, or whatever it is you believe in, shut the fuck up,” groans Emily, massaging her patched-up neck. “I’m pretty sure it’s used to worse things, considering who was its owner.”

“Yeah, he and I have been through a lot more than a stray bullet,” boasts Mike, strategically sitting as far away from the brunette as possible, which still doesn’t protect him from her acidic glare.

Things have never been more awkward between them than now, but at the same time, there’s nothing more freeing than realizing that you didn’t leave your friend for monsters to feast on. So they act like they hadn't killed a mythical creature hours ago, and it’s surprisingly easy to fall back into their old routine, at least for the time being.

But they don’t talk about the state Jessica’s in. They don’t talk about Ashley’s constantly trembling fingers. They don’t talk about Mike’s _missing_ fingers. They also mercifully ignore the fact that Sam and Josh are holding hands.

Mike is being funny and jovial, which is how you can tell he’s nervous, but it seems to be working. They push their issues aside and enjoy the camaraderie, making fun of the horrors they had to face, because what else are they supposed to do?

Chris keeps touching Josh’s shoulder with equal dose of affection and hesitance, not sure what their bro status is. Sam doubts that he fully forgave him for hitting Ashley, or that he forgave himself for leaving him alone in the shed. They’re going to need a lot more time to truly return to their old selves, if that’s even an option.

And Emily… Emily is amazing. She got the permission for them to tag along with the rescue party under the pretense of knowing the way. That doesn’t stop her from being mad at Josh and Mike, but she’s not very passionate about it. Sam suspects she’s only angry for the sake of being angry.

“It’s good to know that you’re feeling worse about almost shooting an animal than about almost shooting us,” says Chris, rolling his eyes.

“Chris has a point. We’re really lucky you’re practically blind,” agrees Mike in good humor.

“You’re hilarious,” mumbles Sam, letting the wolf lick her face. “By the way, Mikey, your friend is a she, not a he, so who’s the blind one here?”

“Still you,” Josh and Chris say in unison. Sam kicks them both in the shins.

“Alright, kids, nap time,” warns Emily. “And give me back my phone. I need to remind Matt to check on Jessica.”

Sam grins at her teasingly.

“Do you honestly think he forgot, or are you, in fact, worried about him?”

Emily doesn’t respond, which leads to a wave of 'awww's coming from the rest of the group.

The rangers shake their heads in disbelief. These kids are nuts, they think. And they’re completely right.

They’re nuts, and they’re terrible people, but they’re not alone. Not anymore and never again.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... that was anticlimactic? but there was no other way to end this. I mean, there was, I'm just not cool enough. I hope you liked my take on post-game Sam, and I really, really hope I didn't bore you to death. this was a very fun writing experiment and I'm thankful for every comment and kudo and I'm glad you've stuck around.  
> (this is my first finished story to date, where's my champage?!)  
> (but tbh I sill have some pretty cute ideas for an epilogue if anyone is interested)


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